The Great Fantastic Comics Telethon
In which our plans at a game-changing manifesto take a backseat to shilling for the store, the unlikely sale of the Fantastic Comics to Sony, and a slightly more likely conversion into Endtimes Cult
Greetings, True Believers! In the midst of procrastinating for months on an epic thought-leader essay sure to light the thinkosphere on fire, we’ve neglected to use this thing for what it’s for — to push books! As always, purchases through our links help the store (and of course, purchases at our store help the store, too!)
Do Beaded Curtains an Adult Section Make?
Apologies in advance to the all-ages crowd, but we’re diving into the deep end of the adult pool with Maria Llovet whose Crave mini-series about randy college students versus a nefarious dating app is pulling decent numbers at the store. She has a box-set of two of her previous books coming out April 2.
Llovet is a fantastic artist whose style and subject matter is reminiscent of Milo Manara and with the cancellation of Heavy Metal, there’s fewer and fewer outlets for that kind of European inflected SF/Fantasy/Erotica. Speaking of which, Penthouse Comics is apparently a thing and has picked up the slack in that arena, and the art is actually… good(?!) Yes, true to their namesake, they do have bosoms in the back pages, but when you tell people, “but I only read it for the comics,” we’ll believe you!
For a more vulgar American flavor, Johnny Ryan’s Fat Cop is a return to form (did he ever leave?) of over-the-top filth and violence. We tried and failed to find a safe-for-work page to show you.
It’s not all erotica and juvenilia. Uel special-ordered a few copies of the beautiful, critically acclaimed, but incendiarily titled N-Word of God just for customers, with possibly one copy left in the store, but if you’re understandably shy about asking for it by name (and don’t be shy about being shy — Uel himself is afraid to keep a copy at home!), you can also get it here.
We’re selling the “keys” to the store…
… and what a key issue we have to sell — “one of the most important comic books of the 80s (according to Uel)”: X-Men 141. Come by and check it out, along with an ever-changing arrival of new old friends such as…
Thor #168. The landlord has his eye on this one. Uel has not priced this one up yet, so make him an offer over $25 or the landlord is liable to scoop this one up at below Overstreet Guide, and Lo, what an ignominious fate for Thor should that happen!
And speaking of outbidding each other, we’ve got 14 more Marvel trades listed for the Never Ending Auction, one of which is GHOST RACERS, one of the weirder concepts to come from the 2015 Secret Wars event, though, what can I say — people like racing things.
The No-Totebag Telethon
Time is running out on our free 50K of credit card processing from Stripe — and to borrow a phrase from our local NPR affiliate, “we haven’t met our pledge goals yet!”
Our main goal is to hit $20,000 and be fully debt-free years ahead of schedule, though as a stretch goal we’d like to max out our $50,000 of processing. Unlike most online fundraising efforts, we won’t get dinged on processing fees up to that amount, so pledging as little as $1 means we get all of that $1.
Right now, what you get for your pledge is auction credit to be used in our Never Ending Auction, which is recorded in a high-tech revolutionary digital ledger known as… a spreadsheet. But we’re willing to do just about anything to get you to pledge. Anything except Fantastic Comic tote bags…
We also have some big ticket items not yet listed, including tasty TMNT skateboard decks, and assorted statues and figurines, and if you actually want to come pick them up, we’re very flexible on the whole Never-Ending part of the Auction.
And to prove our commitment to selling out…
For a limited time only, we are offering to sell Fantastic Comics, kit and kaboodle to Sony for the low, low price of…. $7.5 million
How did we arrive at that figure? Well, $7.5 million is one tenth the $75 million production cost of Morbius, which was, shall we say, not a tremendous hit for Sony, not to mention the even higher budget of Madame Web. Let’s just say, they’re not doing too great at the moment in the comics properties department.
What does Sony get?
The consulting services of Elder Statesman Uel, who will no doubt spend every waking hour riffling through Spider-Man lore for cinematic potential yet untapped.
Much to the grumbling of our landlord, Sony can lay claim to the real estate itself, valued at over $36 million.
The entire back inventory of the store, including a copy of our super rare book Drunk Plans, valued at $1 Million.
Oh yes, and an actual functioning comic book store: a perfect test market for their projects in a major cultural city. Value: priceless!
Serious inquiries only — to prove you are genuinely interested in comics, and not just releasing placeholder movies to keep your Spider-Man rights from reverting to Marvel, please pledge $10,000 in auction credit as a show of good faith. Thanks!
The Succession Question
Having lapped the age when his former boss/mentor/nemesis Rory Root of Comic Relief slipped this mortal coil, Uel has assumed the role of Elder Crank in the Berkeley Comics Biz, but much like our presidential candidates, he is operating under the assumption he is going to live forever.
And in fairness, if Uel were running for President, he’d be considered a spotty teenager, but contrary to popular belief, we do not have a Lazarus Pool in the basement, so it would be prudent to do some planning to avoid the fate of a post-Rory Comic Relief.
If you’re interested in ensuring continuity, and would rather the store not fall into the hands of Sony, we invite you join the Church of Multiversal Truth. It’s early days yet, so there’s plenty of room for ideas and visions of what the next iteration of Fantastic Comics will be so let’s get the vicious infighting and machiavellian machinations going now so Uel can enjoy them.
One of these visions include a non-profit literal church taking over the store to keep comics alive in Berkeley till literal end-times. Instead of shoppers coming on New Comic Book Day to get their fix, parishioners show up weekly with their offerings and receive the holy sacraments of the revealed texts. If you have experience running/setting up non-profits, or a full religion, or even the odd cult, maybe you have what it takes to be Deacon to Reverend Uel.
But as chump stakes, like most religions, we’re going to ask you pledge at least $1 to show your commitment to the cause. In for a dollar, in for a pound of flesh, as the saying goes (that’s how that saying goes, right?) Or pledge $7, or $666 depending how your that tickles your numerology funny bone. We won’t mind!